1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for manufacturing a liquid ejection head composed of a line head in which element substrates provided with liquid supply openings are arranged in a direction crossing a sheet conveying direction on a base plate on which liquid supply slits are formed, for correcting a position of the liquid supply opening to the liquid supply slit, and the liquid ejection head.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, in a liquid ejection head in which a plurality of element substrates are arranged, the element substrate is positioned and fixed on a support member (base plate) made of aluminum, resin or the like in such manner as to arrange the element substrate in a predetermined position at the time of attaching the liquid ejection head to a liquid ejection apparatus. In this way, there is used a line head in which ejection is made possible on a sheet over an entire region of a sheet width by arranging the element substrates, which are thus positioned and fixed on the base plate, in a zigzag manner. In a case of the liquid ejection head in which such element substrates are arranged on the base plate in a zigzag manner, each of the element substrates is positioned and fixed on the base plate on which liquid supply slits for supplying liquids to the element substrates are each arranged in a predetermined position.
At this time, two lines of the liquid supply slits in the base plate each are linearly formed at an interval in a direction vertical to a sheet conveying direction, and the plurality of element substrates are attached in predetermined positions on the base plate for fixation. Accordingly a position of a liquid supply opening disposed on the element substrate is designed to be adjusted to a predetermined position to a position of the liquid supply slit of the base plate.
However, in a case of an elongated liquid ejection head as the line head, a strain is possibly generated in the base plate, and therefore there are some cases where the position of the liquid supply opening provided on the element substrate does not match the position of the liquid supply slit in the base plate.
Therefore according to Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2010-23486, the ink supply member that will be attached to the base plate is divided into a plurality of ink supply members in view of the event that attachment between members different from each other is one cause of generation of the base plate strain, and thus the strain of the base plate is reduced.
The generation of the strain in the base plate is caused not only by the attachment of the different members to each other. In a case of the line head that can eject liquids over an entire region of the sheet in A4 size in the width direction, the base plate having a length of approximately 300 to 400 mm is used. In a case where the base plate of such a length is formed of an aluminum sintered body, a curved warp is generated in the base plate. In regard to an outline of the base plate in which the warp is thus generated, a deformed amount thereof can be removed by cutting work or the like, but in regard to the positions of the plurality of liquid supply slits formed on the base plate, the positional shift of each becomes the larger in the sheet conveying direction from both the ends toward the center of the base plate.
FIG. 11 is a diagram showing element substrates and a base plate according to the conventional technology. When a plurality of element substrates each are, as shown in FIG. 11, attached and fixed on the base plate in a predetermined position to line up in a straight line, the position of the liquid supply slit of the base plate is shifted largely in the sheet conveying direction from that of the liquid supply opening of the element substrate in the position where the base plate is deformed in a curved shape.
As a result, there are some cases where an opening width of the liquid supply opening of the element substrate is made small. Therefore a refill failure in which liquids are not sufficiently supplied occurs, an adherent for attaching and fixing the element substrate flows into the liquid supply slit, and in the worst case, the liquid supply opening of the element substrate is closed up by the base plate. Therefore the base plate the entirety of which is deformed in a curved shape and in which the liquid supply slit position is out of a predetermined dimension cannot be used, leading to a reduction in production yield rate of the base plate, that is, a cost increase in production thereof.